Here Comes the Bride
by whitewave16
Summary: AU – Sakura and Syaoran met as small kids, lost touch, and grew up. He becomes a notorious player while she is a charming pediatric dentist with a handsome boyfriend. What will happen when they finally meet again?
1. Let's Get Married!

AU – Sakura and Syaoran met as small kids, lost touch, and grew up. Years later, he is a notorious playboy who specializes in dating bridesmaids while she is a charming pediatric dentist with a very handsome boyfriend. What will happen when they finally bump into each other again?

Disclaimer: CCS and TRC belong to CLAMP.

Chapter 1. Let's Get Married!

**Prologue 1: S&S**

Yelan and Nadeshiko were friends from their modeling days. The Kinimotos were in town visiting Yelan's family who live in Beiba. They went out with their husbands for an afternoon of sightseeing and eating out downtown to catch up on each other's lives. They left their children in the playroom of the Li mansion under the care of the Li family's nanny--Nanny Lei, who was about 60 and a "little hard at hearing".

Inside the playroom, the four Li daughters 11 years old (twins) and 9 years old (twins) respectively, were playing with their gold-colored (plastic) princess beauty sets. They all had tiaras and plastic jewelry on and very red lipstick that they stole from their mother's make-up case. 6 year-old Syaoran and 4 year-old Sakura were still taking an afternoon nap in a corner of the playroom under the watchful gaze of Nana Lei.

In comes a slightly disoriented 12-year old Touya, who almost lost his way around the maze-like halls after going to the "little boy's room". He looked at the cackling little witches in the corner and knew that it did not bode well for him. He picked up a book and tried to ignore their whispering.

Fuutie, the eldest daughter, led the girls as they approached him. "Touya, you know we've read a book about a pasha in Arabia." She stood in his left side.

"Uhum…" Touya said, tightening his hold on the book.

"He lived in a large palace like our house…" Xuehua said, going to Touya's right side.

"Uhum…" Touya said, still pretending to read the book.

"He was tall, dark and handsome and rich, just like you." Feimei said, joining Fuutie.

"We're not rich…and I'm not handsome either." Touya blushed, he was starting to feel nervous.

"And so we thought," Huanglian, the youngest, said, "that if you become a pasha…"

Xuehua: "You can..."

Feimei: "Marry four wives..."

Huanglian: "At the same time…"

Fuutie: "We can all marry you!"

Touya stumbled and fell out of his chair. His whole life (so far) flashed before his eyes.

The girls chorused: "Marry us, Touya!" And they all glomped him at the same time.

Nanny Lei looked nonplussed at the youngsters and just smiled. "Innocent little things." She said. (She's a bit hard at hearing.)

Touya stood up, his shirt hanging at an odd angle from his shoulder and ran out of the room. The girls immediately ran after him. "Touya, come back here! We know how to perform the ceremony!"

Nanny Lei had to leave her comfortable chair to look after the bigger kids, who were rampaging noisily around the halls outside of the Li Nursery. The old woman thought that they were just playing tag.

Syaoran and Sakura woke up because of the racket. Sakura started to sob she hated it when she woke up alone. "Uhuhu…"

Syaoran frowned, he jumped from his bed and reached her side in no time. "You're such a cry baby, here, eat this." He gave her a big bar of his precious milk chocolate from his secret stash (under his daybed). He was feeling very generous today—a month ago with Meiling he only gave her a very small pinch and that was after she had cried her lungs out.

Sakura pouted cutely but accepted the chocolate just the same. "Uhmmmm. It's jelishoos Shooran!" She liked saying his name—it sounded so cute, just like him.

"You're such a baby." He said promptly ignoring that he is also just a child, he liked the way she said his name, even if it sounded like "shoe" in stead of "syao".

"Where are they?" She asked, her lips were brown with chocolate. He liked it when she smiled, but of course he wouldn't tell her that.

They could hear loud noises from upstairs—of doors opening and closing, of loud, running feet, a panicking boy's shout and predatory feminine screams. Syaoran pointed his finger up. "Up there, can't you hear?" He tried to be grouchy in front of her so she won't notice that he likes her.

Sakura chose to ignore his grouchiness. "Let's play Shooran!"

"I don't want to play with you."

"Why not?"

"Because….because…you're a girl."

"I know—why don't we play house?" She said brightly.

"Um…play house?" He frowned. His sisters would usually force him to play house with them and he is usually cast as the "baby" since he was the youngest. Then they would take turns pinching his cheeks and calling him "kawaii" in high-pitched voices. The upside is that they'd give him chocolate milk for all the humiliation.

"**Play house**--you know where there's a daddy and a mommy and kids?"

"I **know** what 'play house' is." There was a hint of arrogance in his voice.

"You could be the daddy and I'll be the mommy and the plushies can be our kids, OK?" Sakura skipped with glee. She couldn't "play house" back home because she there were few people to play house with. Touya would usually pretend to be a big bad wolf that would pretend to "eat" her dolls, so she would always exclude him. There is no "daddy" so the family is still incomplete.

"We can't be daddy or mommy because we're not married." Syaoran said dryly.

"Then why don't you marry me?" She asked without batting an eyelash.

"Ermmm…OK." When he played with his sisters, it was usually Fuutie who played "daddy" because she was the eldest and tallest while Xuehua would play "mommy" because she was second oldest. At least now he had been _**promoted**_ _**from baby to daddy**_. "Here," he gave her a plastic ring from his sister's princess beauty sets and took a bigger one for himself. She slid the ring on his ring finger and he did the same to her.

Syaoran took charge, being the "bigger" kid: "OK, so now we hold hands and pray together." They held hands and bowed their heads to pray together.

Syaoran waited for her to finish praying. "Now we kiss."

"OK". Sakura said, puckering her lips.

Syaoran blushed and scratched his head he suddenly felt shy. He didn't expect her to just say yes. He cleared his throat. "We have to do a long kiss, I've seen my Father and Mother do it."

Sakura nodded. She saw her parents do it too. "Hurry up then and kiss me, Shooran."

So they pressed their chocolate-smeared lips together. After about a minute, Syaoran pulled away, blushing. His lips felt all nice and tickly, it felt good to do it and he could smell her cherry shampoo.

Sakura frowned. "That's not long enough. I've seen it on TV, you should count to 10." She closed her eyes again, puckering her lips.

"Ummm…OK." Syaoran counted in his head in Japanese and Chinese (he is very good in math). He licked the chocolate from her lips and she did the same to his.

Meanwhile, the four girls have cornered Touya in the garden. He clambered up a tall tree and the girls were looking up at him, coaxing him to marry them. Nana Lei was trying to calm down the 5 bigger kids.

"Now what do we do?" Sakura asked. "I know—I can cook for the kids." She motioned to the army of plushies stacked in a neat row in the toy shelves.

"I can help you." He said. She nodded. "You could read the newspaper while we're eating later. My dad does it all the time."

"OK." He had also seen his dad do that.

She got into 'character' immediately. She took the chibi-sized plastic cooking set in the corner and the basket full of plastic vegetables, fruit and meat and pretended to prepare a meal for her 'family'. He set the table.

"We should also have a honeymoon, too you know." Syaoran said.

"What do we do in a homee-moon?" She asked, pouring imaginary soup into the bowls for their 'kids'.

"Stuff…I guess…it took my aunt and uncle a month to finish theirs." He said.

"But we're leaving tomorrow." She pointed out, alarmed. "We should do it really fast."

"I don't know. You're supposed to give something precious to each other." He was also puzzled and for some reason he suddenly felt sad to know that his new "wife" is leaving tomorrow, he really likes her. He suppressed the urge to cry because his Dad said boys should never cry and he is a big boy now and he didn't want Sakura to think that he's a cry baby.

Sakura was close to tears. She suddenly went back to the mini-bed and took her brand new pink teddy bear. She broke her "tooth fairy" piggy bank so she could buy the bear. Her mother would "pay" Sakura whenever she lost a milk tooth. The 4-year old girl kissed and hugged the bear. "Here, Shooran. This is very precious to me. You can have it." Her eyes were shining with tears, she really loved her pink teddy bear and she hasn't even named it yet.

Syaoran was touched. "Wait here." He ran to his bedroom and was back in a minute, panting. He was holding a bigger brown teddy bear with a green polka-dot tie around its neck. "Here, this is precious to me too." He said as he held it out to her.

Sakura took and hugged it close. It smelled like him—chocolate. She then started to cry loudly. "I'm so sad, Shooran! I'll miss you! And who will take care of our kids when I go away?"

Syaoran patted her shoulder. "I'll miss you too. I will take care of them, don't cry. Maybe we should sleep again?" He suggested desperately, that was the only way he could think of for her to stop crying.

"But I'm not sleepy, I'm sad!" Her face was wet with tears now. He wiped it off with his hanky.

"I'll give you **ALL** of my milk chocolate bars if you sleep again." He said soothingly. That meant he would have to do without chocolate for weeks—it was his secret store.

"All of it?" Sakura said, her sobs subsiding.

"Yes, all of it." Syaoran said. He emptied the contents of his green backpack and gave it to her. She placed it all inside her pink pouch.

"But what about you? Won't you get hungry?" She asked, suddenly feeling concerned.

"I have had enough chocolate. " He replied nonchalantly.

"OK." Sakura said and hugged him tight. "I love you, Shooran! Will you marry someone else when I'm in Tomoeda?"

"Of course not!" He replied a bit louder than he intended. He stuttered when he continued: "But we should sleep together now because we're married." She nodded. She knows that her parents sleep together too. He joined her on the daybed that she was sleeping on earlier and put his arm around her as they lay down. In a few minutes they were both sleeping again. Sakura sucked her thumb and Syaoran's face was almost buried in her hair.

Around this time, the bigger kids sauntered to the room with both sets of parents, the Li's and the Kinimotos. "Oh look they're so cute!" Yelan said indicating the sleeping Syaoran and Sakura. The other parents agreed. Nadeshiko smiled and asked, "So they both slept all afternoon?" Nana Lei nodded. "They're such innocent angels!" The four Li daughters were whispering among themselves: "Little brother's got himself a kawaii girlfriend!"

Touya frowned. He was the only person in the room who was not happy with what he is seeing. He wanted to punch the sleeping gaki and remove his filthy, stinking hand from his sister. He never felt the urge to hurt younger kids before except right now—and only for the gaki. He remembered that the two had slept on separate beds earlier and was wondering how the stupid, annoying gaki transferred to his sister's bed. He was glad they were leaving this place first thing tomorrow or the gaki might get ideas with his sister. Little did he know that he was well, a bit too late?

As scheduled, the Kinimotos drove back to Tomoeda after brunch the following morning. Syaoran held Sakura's hands as he walked her to their van, which the adults thought was sweet. Touya could not do anything but glare at the gaki because he had the four girls hanging on to him. The adults were of course oblivious to everything. Sakura cried inconsolably all the way back to Tomoeda, hugging the brown bear tight. Touya was busy trying to catch his breath, he was almost strangled to death by those girls and his parents did not notice a thing. They even took pictures!

The two families lost touch of each other because the Li family had to move overseas temporarily for additional treatment of Mr. Li's illness. Nadeshiko died a few years later. The "newlyweds" did not see each other again until many years later, when they were all grown-up.

XOXOXOXOXOXO

**Prologue 2: E&T**

6-year old Eriol was very pissed for this past week. Very, very pissed. His dad, Clow Reed had grounded him indefinitely. And what was more annoying was that his mom Yuko had agreed with his dad this time. (She would usually intercede on his behalf.)

All he did was "destroy" the super weird stained glass cathedral-size windows in the mansion of the old neighborhood weirdo Fei Wong. He and his siblings believed that the over-sized bats on the windows were scary and that the old, batty man worshipped them and smelled like the winged creatures too! It's either that or he has a fixation for Batman, which could be possible, since the old man is a bit retarded in their opinion. It also broke Eriol's heart whenever he saw how scared his secret crush and neighbour 6-year old Tomoyo Daidouji is whenever their school bus passed by that spooky old mansion. So he only did what a typical Prince Charming would do--protect his princess.

It was exciting pitching baseballs to break the glass windows. He had practiced well on their own house's windows many times before, often when playing baseball with his dad. The aftermath of his glass breaking spree was that his dad had to write a check to pay the weird old man when he arrived with a basket of blue baseballs marked with "**Eriol Reed wuz hea**" and the jagged remnants of his precious stained glass windows. (Eriol had to make sure that the other boy who was trying to catch Tomoyo's attention—Kurogane or something—does not get the chance to claim the credit for this so he wrote his name on all the baseballs. Ah young love! Or should we say, foolish love?)

Earlier that week, he found out that Tomoyo was moving away because her parents have divorced but he couldn't even say goodbye to her since he is **grounded indefinitely**. He felt so forlorn. What if she forgets all about him and marries another boy? What if they don't see each other again?

Now his older siblings, 10-year old Nakuru and 8-year old Kimihiro felt very sorry for their little brother. So they thought of something to distract their parents so Eriol can say goodbye to his dear Tomoyo. In exchange, Eriol was to do both of their household chores for as long as he was grounded. It was a very solemn act. They did a three-way sibling spit shake and a complicated butt dance on it.

It was a Saturday morning, around 10-ish, so both of their parents were sleeping in. This is when his lovely Tomoyo is going to leave, so they put their plan to action. Eriol was waiting in the living room, his trusty bike was hidden and ready in the bushes, and his farewell gift for Tomoyo is in his backpack.

Kimihiro entered their parents' room and shook their mother awake. Yuuko was a light sleeper so she opened her eyes immediately. "Mom, mom, I forgot my book at school yesterday. I need it for my homework." (He's attending genius school.)

Yuuko sat up, still groggy. "What's that sweetheart?" She turned and leaned her head on a pile of blankets in the depths of which lay her husband.

Kimihiro repeated what he said, ending with: "Can you help me get it pleeeeezzzz, Mom?" He tried to look as helpless as possible (which made him want to throw up). Luckily he dabbed on some fake tears using the "tear bottle" of Nakuru to fake his "watery eyes". Eriol sure owed him a LOT!

Yuuko immediately got up and dressed. She was very supportive of the children's studies. "Clow!!!" she bellowed as she violently shook her husband's sleeping form. Kimihiro yawned while his mother's back was turned. He was not bothered at all with what he was seeing. Everyone in the family knew that Clow slept like a log—**literally.** He could sleep through a tornado if you'd let him.

"Uhmmm.." Came a drowsy grunt from the mass of blankets that is her husband.

Yuuko sighed. "Good, still alive. I have to drive Hiro to school to get his book. It's your turn to make brunch today, OK?"

Two more distinct grunts came from the blanket pile, but his wife was apparently satisfied. Hiro smiled silently to himself because he got the easier task. He had left the "missing" book in school on purpose yesterday in his "secret" location so he could tell his mom that he had to look for it. Nakuru's job was to distract their Dad, which would need all his sister's so-called "acting" skills and hyperactive energy to pull off. Hiro gave a small thumbs-up sign to Eriol (who was hiding behind a sofa in the living room) when he and his mom passed by. They drove off in a few minutes. Eriol climbed upstairs and did their "secret" sibling knock on his older sister's bedroom door. Phase 2 of the plan was about to start.

All of Clow's and Yuuko's children were geniuses in their own way: Kimihiro with numbers, Eriol with music and Nakuru, well, in her "acting" skills. Inside her well-lit ruby-red boudoir (as she calls it, but most of us would just call it bedroom), Nakuru had on a thick, white, plush robe—the kind that actresses wear in-between takes. She applied some lip stain to her cheeks to redden them and make them look like she had been crying for a **looong **time. She put some dark powder under her eyes to make her look "less attractive". Ewwww! How she hated looking bad, but great actresses often "uglied" down for their craft. She was only doing this for Eriol, who had agreed to do her chores for as long as he was grounded—that was her "motivation".

Her room was fit for an actress. She wanted to be one someday so she counted about a dozen long feather boa and exotic looking masks as part of her 10-year old wardrobe. (She is the apple of her dad's eyes). She stole her mom's expensive lip plumper to make her lips look swollen. It looked like she was stung by the occupants of an entire beehive. She dabbed fake tears into her eyes and kept a bottle in her pocket when the "pivotal" scene came. She "emoted" in front of her three-way, full-length mirror to see which facial expression would be most convincing.

Waking up her dad is a big, difficult job, but like we said, she's a genius. She took off her plush terry robe and went to her parents's bedroom. She kicked off her white espadrilles off haphazardly, getting "into character". Her inspiration for this "scene" was the latest dramatic episode in a TV soap wherein the bastard daughter of the Count of Vertram returns to remind him of how he deserted her. It's good that Clow never watched soap operas or else her plan might not work.

Step 1: "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaddyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!" (Even Eriol had to cover his ears downstairs).

No response from the "pile of blankets" on the bed.

'Typical Dad', shrugged Ruby. She rolled up a piece of newspaper into a tube and walked towards her father. She pointed the improvised megaphone to where his ear should be and repeated 'Step 1'.

Rewind Step 1: "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaddyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!" Eriol had earphones now.

Clow's heart rate shot up and he abruptly got up from the bed. He thought there was an army of stampeding elephants in his room. "WHATTT?!?!?!?" He shouted, extremely startled. What a great way to wake up!

He clumsily groped for his glasses on his bed's side table and when he finally able to put them on, he saw his precious daughter, sitting on the floor near the bed, sobbing like there was no tomorrow. "You, you, shouted at me daddy….you shouted at me!!!!!! You don't love me anymore!!!! (Take note: She is shouting too.)

Clow's face softened. It was his precious "hime" after all who had him wrapped around her little finger since the day he saw her in the ultrasound screen. He couldn't bring himself to be strict with any of his kids, but most especially with Ruby, leaving his wife the job of 'family disciplinarian'.

He got up and approached his daughter. "Hime, hime…" He cooed soothingly. "Daddy is sorry—he was just startled…don't cry now Hime."

Ruby sobbed even harder. She looked up at her dad with her big brown eyes brimming with tears and said in between sobs and while wiping away her tears: "I…just…wanted to accompany you to McDee's to buy our brunch with you….but but…I guess you don't want me to go because you shouted at meeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" And she hid her face on the bed sheets again. Clow felt very bad and very guilty now. His daughter looked so forlorn.

An idea popped in his head. "Dry your tears now Hime, we'll go out to buy brunch if you want, OK?"

Ruby sniffed, her fingers had been crossed all this time. "Really, daddy?"

"Really. And we can even buy that dress you asked your mother to buy you at the mall, remember?" Clow said tenderly.

Ruby could almost jump for joy but she restrained herself. Her mother thought that the dress was too expensive for a 10 year old and said no to her, but her dad was another matter. "But, but…mom said…I can't. And she said we can only buy it when it's on sale! I feel so poor!!!!" She pretended to sob again and blew her nose loudly on her parent's bed sheets.

"I will buy it for my hime, just don't tell Queen Mommy, OK?" Clow said in a conspiratory tone. He knew he would get an earful from his wife who thought that he spoiled their daughter too much.

She nodded, slowly going back to her usual perky, hyper self. "But you're still tired, Daddy—can we really go to the mall?"

"I'm not tired anymore hime. But first, I have to check on Eriol first.." Her father replied.

"I'll check up on him, I'm his older sister after all." Ruby said.

"How responsible of you hime. That's why I'm so proud of you." Clow beamed at her. "I'll just get dressed so we can go right away, all right?"

"OK!" Ruby smiled sweetly at him, all her sorrows apparently forgotten. She rushed downstairs to where her younger brother was hiding and waiting—she gave him a triumphant victory wave worthy of a diva. Clow hurried downstairs fully dressed. It would not do to keep his hime waiting.

"Eriol is still asleep Daddy, but I prepared his favorite cereal and strawberry milk for him on the table, in case he gets hungry before we arrive." Ruby informed her father.

Clow nodded and smiled like the proud father that he is. "Let's go then, hime." Ruby skipped as she followed him to his sleek, expensive car.

Phase 3 of the plan is now in effect. Eriol waited for the sound of his Dad's car to fade before he jumped on his bike and pedaled fast towards the Daidouji's mansion two blocks away.

Tomoyo was waiting for him at their back door. "Eriol! You're here!" She hugged him in welcome, making him blush.

"Uh-ah-uh-of course. I wish I could have arrived earlier." He said, very flustered and cleared his throat. "Is the Fluorite kid here?"

"Yes, he's in the solarium." Her cheeks were red when she replied. She looked at the on the ground and smoothed imaginary lints in her white skirt. She was wearing an all-white dress with a thin veil on her long, dark hair. Eriol had asked her to marry him and she said yes. The Fluorite kid agreed to "marry" them since his dad Ashura was a pastor.

"Would you like to ride on my bike with me?" Eriol asked shyly.

She nodded and sat on the wicker seat in front of his bike where she leaned her head on his chest. He blushed again and his glasses got fogged over. They rode towards the solarium which was on the other side of the property. He climbed out of the bike first and assisted her when she stood up from her seat.

"Eriol, before we do this…I just want to say…" Tomoyo said, holding his hands. "I know what you did for me—when you destroyed those windows of Fei Wong. I… thank you, I know you've been grounded because of me..." She started to cry. Eriol tried to soothe her by hugging her, putting aside his shyness. He was starting to think that it was all worth it after all. "And I don't like Kurogane, I like you—even if I think you also like Kaho-sensei because you pinched her butt." Tomoyo was sobbing now.

Eriol was very relieved that she did not like Kurogane but he felt a bit guilty too about the other thing that she said. "Tomoyo, I don't like Kaho-sensei—she's ancient! She's 27!"

"But you said her butt is cute!" she accused.

"Er…well…only her butt is cute—but you—everything about you is cute!" Eriol said with much conviction.

This seemed to console her very much. Fay emerged from the solarium munching loudly on an apple. "Can we start now? I'm going to miss my favorite anime." He was holding a children's prayer book that his dad gave him in his other hand.

"Tomoyo? Shall we?" Eriol nervously.

"Of course." She replied, holding his hand.

"Good. Now place both of your hands on my prayer book." The couple complied. "We stand here in the presence of heaven to join this…ummm…little boy and this little girl in holy matrimony."

"Hey I'm not a little boy!" Eriol protested.

"For me, you're a cute and brave little boy." Tomoyo interrupted, trying to prevent an argument from happening.

Eriol blushed at this, now both of his hands were holding hers.

Fay cleared his throat, a bit annoyed at the interruption. "We stand here in the presence of heaven to join this **cute and brave** little boy and this cute and pretty little girl in holy matrimony. Do you Eriol Reed, take Tomoyo Daidouji as your lawfully wedded wife, in sickness and in health…and all that jazz…for as long as you both shall live?"

"I do." Eriol replied.

"And do you Tomoyo Daidouji…"

"I do." Tomoyo replied and then she did something totally spontaneous, she stood on tiptoes and kissed her startled new "husband" on his lips. They both blushed and continued to look at each other, ignoring Fay.

"But I haven't finished with my question yet." Fay complained. "Ah do whatever you like, I'm leaving. By the power and all that jazz, I now pronounce you husband and wife. Bye." He left fuming on his racing bike.

Tomoyo's cellphone rang and she answered it. It was her mom, Sonomi. "Where are you dear? We're ready to leave."

"I'm on my way there mom, in a minute." Tomoyo's voice threatened to break when she ended the call. "Eriol, promise me you won't forget me."

"I promise. I'll call and write to you every day. We're married, we won't be apart for long."

"So will I, promise. Here, keep this." She handed him an embroidered hanky which he took. He gave her his favorite blue scarf, which she hugged close to her.

Eriol drove his new "wife" to the waiting car of Sonomi.

"Oh hi Eriol, didn't know you were here. Hurry up dear." Sonomi motioned to her daughter.

Tomoyo meekly entered the car with a sad backward look at her miserable-looking new "husband." Sonomi, as usual, was oblivious to all of this and promptly closed the car's door. They then sped off for the airport. Tomoyo hoisted herself at the back window of the car and waved to him.

Eriol could feel his chest constricting. He mounted his bike and followed the car that contained his beloved. He pedaled after the car until they got near the express way. The last time he saw her, Tomoyo was openly crying and waving to him and then they were gone. Eriol finally gave in to his urge to cry.

For the next few days, his parents noticed how miserable their youngest son was and could only think that the reason was because they grounded him. So one night, Clow and Yuuko made a family announcement—they are lifting Eriol's punishment---which astonished all three of their children. Its benefits to Eriol were immense--this meant that his siblings will have to do their own chores now instead of him.

"But Daddy, I'm sure that Eriol hasn't learned his lesson yet." Ruby protested—not relishing the fact that she would have to take out the garbage now.

"Mom—I thought it was indefinite? Indefinite does not amount to less than two weeks!" Kimihiro frowned.

The stern look on both their parents' faces quelled the protests of Ruby and Kimihiro. They cannot tell them about the bet of course—or else, they would be grounded too. Eriol was silent through all this. He was still sad because he had not heard from Tomoyo since she left. He never heard from her for many, years afterwards, until they were both grown-up and what a reunion it was!

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Hiya! I'm not sure if this is OK enough to continue, so please drop a review if you have time. Thanks!


	2. Two Decades Hence

AU – Sakura and Syaoran met as small kids, lost touch, and grew up. Years later, he is a notorious player while she is a charming pediatric dentist with a very handsome boyfriend. What will happen when they finally bump into each other again?

Disclaimer: CCS and TRC belong to CLAMP.

General Notes: Thanks to everyone who took the time to read this story, but most especially those who reviewed and put this story on their alerts/favorites. This chapter is dedicated to all of you.

Chapter 2. All Grown Up Now

**About 20 years later….**

**GIRLS: **

Sakura Kinimoto, 24, had opened her very own dental clinic about a year ago. It had state-of-the-art equipment, 2 "treatment rooms" (one for boys and one for girls), a cheerful waiting room with a whole wall that children can actually doodle on (they can be wiped off afterwards) and a play house stocked with chibi toys and plushed animals. The clinic is located in Seijuu – about 30 minutes drive from Tomoeda. She was able to afford all of this thanks to the money willed to her by her great-grandfather Masaki Amamiya.

Her very handsome (first) boyfriend of 4 years, Tsukishiro Yukito (her first boyfriend), had misgivings about her decision to decorate it the way she did. He considered her "concept" too childish. He told her this in a very nice way though—such was Yuki.

But he was also happy when she showed him her clinic's healthy financial standing – she had managed to recover her initial investment within a year. After all, Seijuu's population is booming; she even has patients from Tomoeda requesting their parents to drive them all the way to the clinic of "Dentist Cherry Blossom", as her little patients called her. Her patients' ages range from 2 to 12. They're actually looking forward to seeing her—like her clinic was a theme park or something. She genuinely likes kids and would like to have several of her own someday with Yukito. But fate sometimes has a quirky way of dealing the cards, so to speak.

Her best friends Tomoyo Taylor, 26, and Chiharu Mihara, 26, also deserve credit, of course. They helped her with her "concept" (they often help each other out with their jobs). They also have this weird habit of calling each other by the last two syllables of their names.

Haru is a broadsheet society columnist by day for Seijuu Daily and emerging romance novelist by night. She started out writing in with the pen name "Violent Pigtails". She wrote an article in the Society Page about Kura's trendy clinic and dubbed her "Dentist Cherry Blossom", which helped her friend a lot. In return, Kura and Moyo are her "beta readers" for her romance stories. Her editor has just agreed to publish her second book which had been well-received like the first and she's starting to get noticed.

Moyo is a toy designer at Piffle Princess Corp. After a bitter divorce, her mother Sonomi remarried a guy named Dan Taylor, who was a very nice guy, unlike her real dad so Tomoyo chose to take his last name too. For a time, they were like a real family but Dan died of cancer just a few years after the wedding, much to her mother's grief and hers. Sonomi now manages a small bed and breakfast hotel located in the country.

As for Moyo, she decided to try her hand at toy design. She was assigned to the "Dolls" Department, where she has a moderately successful line of cute dolls with interchangeable dresses. But, after several years of toil, she was FINALLY able to design a marketable toy: CardMistress Sakura! Of course it was based on her bestfriend and cousin, with Haru's inputs.

Moyo also designs Kura's "costumes" in the dental clinic as a past time. They discovered that it puts the children at ease—too much in fact that they don't really want to leave after their treatment. Kura has several themes going: angel, princess, snow bunny, and mermaid for her girl patients; outer space, cowboys, sports and racing for her boy patients. They change themes every now and then including the decorations of the boy's and girl's treatment rooms.

All three girls share a rather large apartment in Seijuu. Let's now proceed to the only interesting part in this entire narrative in the first place anyway: the state of our heroines' love lives, starting from the most advanced to the well, most basic.

ADVANCED (Wet and wild jungle): 

Haru has been secretly dating a "hot guy" for the past few months. Their "encounters" are all synonymous with hot, wild, and pornographic. She even suspects that he will pop the ultimate question soon—but she's not so sure about that since they proceed to foreplay on their first 10 minutes together. She couldn't tell her best friends because she wouldn't hear the end of it. She intends to tell soon though—she's just looking for the right timing.

How did she meet him? Her publisher, Kodansha, had another emerging author of joke books and the weirdest science fiction—his pen name is Slitz Foreyes. She initially hated him being her rival for book sales and he would even send her private notes every now and then through her publisher with his opinion about her books—the scenes that sucked, how the characters are not realistic, etc.

Somehow, he even found out about her account and cloyingly reviewed every single chapter she wrote under the pen name "Red Banana Grinder". (Red Banana is Tomoeda's dirty dark secret—it's a strip club for women and gays. Lots of well-toned, tantalizingly exposed male meat grinding to sultry saxophone music.)

Well, good thing there's a delete option now for reviews in She deleted all of his reviews. But that did not deter him, he just signed-in again with a new pen name "Red Banana Returns" and repeated his previous reviews with some "annoying" additions. He weaved ludicrous tales to refute all the details she painstakingly researched on for her fiction.

She bitched about him constantly to her friends—that was before they met. It was a classic hate-at-first-sight moment when they were introduced. Lo and behold! "Slitz Foreyes" is actually Takashi Yamazaki, her childhood friend who she lost contact with. How cliché, but there you go!

INTERMEDIATE (Mild temperate grassland): 

Moyo had always been an extremely behaved, proper girl. She and her mom figured in a horrible vehicular accident shortly after she and her mom moved to Tomoeda. She was in a coma for about a month. When she woke up, she temporarily lost the ability to walk. This crushed her—for she was quite an active child. She has a very vague memory of those years and it sometimes brings her to tears just to look at her photo albums that her mother had to hide all her pictures during that time period. She spent a total of 5 years in a wheel chair during which she developed her hobby of creating toys or sketching dresses mostly to occupy her. It took 7 years of therapy before she could walk again, and up until now, she's still gnawed by low self-confidence.

She can still recall clearly her very first kiss at 18 (we all know that she had her first way, way earlier than this, right?) with her first boyfriend Ichiro, the guy that her mother chose for her. Ichiro was quite the looker and he appeared to be care a lot for her so she allowed herself to develop feelings for him. Her world revolved around him. In fact, she even considered giving herself completely to him, even if he was a bit on the "short and tiny" side of things. (She's groped him once or twice during one of their make-out sessions). Luckily for her, fate intervened.

Shortly after finding out that her mother's business went bankrupt, he cheated on her and dumped her for the school slut. It had been one loss after another for her and it turned her into Moyo has become the Ice Queen after that. Whoever the next major guy in her life would be, he has a major uphill battle ahead of him. She would never allow anyone to hurt her again. Ever.

BASIC (Dry, dry, dry, dry, dry, dry, dry, dry dehydrated, denuded desert):

Kura felt like every typical romantic heroine when she first saw Tsukishiro. He has **very neat** shiny gray-hair, tall, handsome, rich, sleek and expensive car, considerate, generous, courteous, kind, friendly, athletic with a toned, evenly-tanned body, classy, always has the right clothes for the right occasion (his colors always match), cultivated, never late, has never been sarcastic to her**, never ever ever ever ever glanced at another woman** or said a lewd comment to her, always the gentleman, sparkling conversationalist, gives her his **full attention each and every** time, in short, the **perfect** man, the ultimate boyfriend.

They met at a Dental Convention in Osaka, when she was still a college student. He's a prominent dental surgeon and famed editor of the Tomoeda Dental Journal. He is also an in-demand dental lecturer all over the country and part-time professor at Tomoeda University's prestigious College of Dentistry. He's also an occasional volunteer for "Dentists without Borders"—he often travels to out-of-the-way places to provide free dental care to people. With all these accomplishments, its easy to see that he has little time for our Kura. But she loves him, so she doesn't mind at all. Not one bit. Nuh-uh. RIGHT.

Her father likes him and her brother, well you know her brother, actually **tolerates** him and apparently trusts him alone with her. (Touya would usually check on her every 30 minutes with her other suitors). Kura once asked her Dad why her brother was over-protective of her. Her dad said that it all started when she was 4 years old. He asked his son about it when Sakura was in high school and Touya muttered something about a **sticky-fingered gakki** after which Touya delivered a devastating karate chop on an unsuspecting pumpkin on the kitchen table—reducing it to pulp as though he suddenly recalled an extremely unpleasant person/memory.

His clinic is the epitome of cleanliness. It smelled of lemons and limes, his favorite air freshener. Everything is neat—as if a whole army of Merry Maids lives to clean the clinic 24/7. All the shelves are well-organized, color-coded, alphabetized by height—as if Martha Stewart arranged them herself. Haru once commented that his air freshener was just about the only lemon and lime that Kura gets from the relationship. Kura, as usual, had no idea what her friend meant. This leads us to a mandatory flashback scene to what happened **yesterday.**

_FLASHBACK: _

_It was the fourth "anniversary" of Kura and Yuki. He had rushed from the airport (from a Dentist without Borders mission) and taken her to the most expensive restaurant in Seijuu. They had a romantic candle-lit dinner, watched a romantic movie (PG-13), took a barefoot, moon-lit walk along Seijuu Beach (you probably have guessed by now where all of this is leading to). _

_He walks her back to her apartment's door (her friends are gone for the night, wink wink!) He inhales her sweet but beguiling scent and she his. They look into each other's eyes for a moment that seemed like eternity, lost into each other's orbs. He closes the distance between them until they were almost breathing the same air. Her green eyes were sparkling, her pouting pink lips were slightly open in nervous, but eager expectation. (Just like one of Haru's romance heroines)._

_He puts his hands on her bare, ivory shoulders, his eyes scanned her well-toned body draped in a clingy, plunging (but not daring) gauzy dress (she had no bra) that accentuated her curves. (Moyo insisted that she wears it). And then…_

_He gives her a chaste, very chaste kiss on both cheeks. "Good night and sweet dreams, Sakura. I enjoyed tonight immensely." He said leaning back. _

_She pulls him back to her…"Yuki, it's our 4__th__ year together and…well…we haven't seen each other for a month and…would you like to come..? Come inside? I'm alone, Yuki." Her virginal cheeks (and pretty much all other parts of her anatomy) blush for her brazenness. (Haru made her memorize these lines—but Kura forgot to add "I'm ready to go all the way with you" at the end)._

_His eyes were twinkling. He goes inside with her, takes off his coat and calmly assists her in taking off hers. Kura felt nervous all of a sudden. _

"_I'll fix you a midnight snack—you go get dressed or freshen up, or whatever you ladies do before bed." Yuki replied smiling._

_Kura blushed again when he said "before bed". She went upstairs to change, her mind racing with thoughts like, 'what if I don't want to do it yet, after all?' 'what if I embarrass myself?' Moyo gave her a rather daring nightgown, but Sakura wore a bath robe to cover it. She's really shy (and dense and gullible)._

_When she returned downstairs, Yuki had prepared an array of club sandwiches. He gave her one and started chomping down on his own. She placed her hand on his knees, gripping them a bit firmly, like Haru told her to. _

_Yuki smiled at her. "Nice robe you're wearing there, where'd you get it? The color suits you." He continued to eat. He managed to eat about 5 club sandwiches that night and fell asleep on the couch soon after. _

_END OF FLASHBACK_

The next day, Haru and Moyo exchanged meaningful looks after Kura told them what happened that night. They personally liked Yukito, but have had their share of suspicions ever since Kura told them that she was finally experienced her first French Kiss (a very brief, and very shallow one based on her description) on their 3rd Year anniversary dinner. And this is just one example, there were many more. Kura was much too in love with Yuki to notice.

"Kura, listen. We need to talk 'that talk again'," was Moyo's preamble.

Haru seconded it. "We really like Yuki—we think he's a very cool **person,** but…"

Kura crossed her arms in front of her chest. "I know where this is going to---you're both just looking out for me, I appreciate it, but Yuki was just being a gentleman and he does not want to take advantage of me."

Moyo's eyes were full of compassion for her naive friend. "Yes, we know, bless him for that. But Kura…he's about 30, a young and healthy male and he has never since made a move on you. That's why we were thinking…that maybe Yuki…"

"There are men who prefer their 'fellowmen', rather than their 'fellowwomen'. Sometimes, they just don't realize it yet." Haru stated. (She could have sworn she saw a guy who looked similar to Yukito in a private room in Red Banana. But she's not sure and she does not have the heart to tell this to her friend. Why was Haru there you ask? That's for another chapter.)

Kura's lip was quivering. She has switched off to full defensive mode. "I love Yuki. Isn't that enough? How could you think so badly of him. What has he ever done to you? I can't believe you two!" Tears started to fall on her cheeks.

"We're really sorry to have to say this, but we're your friends, it's our duty to..." Moyo replied, her throat clenching with emotion.

"Kura, please." Haru reached out to her friend.

For the first time in her life, Kura said hurtful words. "Please don't give me advise based on your experiences with men—not all men are out to take advantage of me Tomoyo. And some men are willing to wait until **after** marriage, Chiharu." Kura fled crying to the garage she started her car and drove off. Moyo and Haru slumped to the sofa, very upset and worried, chiding themselves for letting the conversation go out of control.

* * *

**BOYS: **

Yelan Li and Yuuko Reed are sisters. They started to see each other more often especially after Yelan lost her husband and it follows that all their children developed a close bond as well. The four Li sisters married soon after finishing college much to Syaoran's relief. Nakuru tried her hand at acting but it had disastrous results so she shifted to an alternative career (more on her later, wink wink). She is still single but no longer available. Hiro has a steady girlfriend, he is now being trained to succeed his Dad in the family consulting firm.

Syaoran Li, 26, is a very successful restaurateur. He has a natural fondness for cooking that's why he chose this career. He owns a high-class, expensive restaurant named "Vert Couronne" (Green Crown) and a chain of very popular and successful music bars with great food and live entertainment that he co-owns with Eriol and Yamazaki. Syaoran also enjoys coaching his nephews in soccer in his spare time. In fact, his team has a series of soccer matches coming up with Seijuu Elementary soon. Even if he doesn't admit it, he really likes kids very much—and would most likely make a very good daddy. He is still a very good cook and when time permits, he experiments on recipes with Eriol, Yamazaki and Hiro as his "food tasters".

Eriol Reed, 26, is a Staff Conductor for the Tomoeda Philharmonic Orchestra. He is not limited to classical music though. He also composes more mass-oriented songs by commission, usually theme songs of commercials, TV shows, the odd movie and even video games. Syaoran, Hiro and Yamazaki are the "test audience" for his music which works very well since all four of them have very eclectic tastes in music.

He uses the last name "Hiirigizawa", his Dad's middle name, to protect his privacy whenever he authors a song. Recently, he received an offer to compose the opening and closing theme for a planned anime show on TV: CardMistress Sakura. He plans to meet up with elusive creator of the character, a certain Moyo Taylor to get her inputs.

Takashi Yamazaki, 26, is Syaoran and Eriol's mutual friend from high school. He has always enjoyed taking still pictures, writing jokes and outlandish stories that are a mixture of the mundane and the mysterious (in other words, weird). Eriol helps him out on this a lot. Their "test audience" is Syaoran—who is quite gullible to their tales.

Syaoran, Eriol and Yamazaki also have "alternative careers" besides the ones mentioned. They also work as **male wedding planners. **Nope. They're not gay, as most of us assume male wedding planners are. It all started out when the four Li sisters and Nakuru decided that they would like to share their wedding planning expertise so they decided to establish **Junoesque.** It's a one-stop wedding planning company, starting from all activities **prior** to the wedding (dress fitting, invitations, the food, the ceremony, the reception, the stag party and the bridal shower) and **after** the wedding (the honeymoon and recently, even the baby showers).

During a particularly big wedding they planned, they had a shortage of ushers so they had to drag Syaoran, Eriol and Yamazaki as the extra ushers. Since then, the three decided to join the business as active partners. Syaoran handles the catering side of it, Eriol handles the music (from the ceremony to the reception) and Yamazaki handles the photography. Syaoran and Eriol enjoy this work immensely as it offers them unlimited chances to meet a bevy of eligible young women—the bridesmaids.

In terms of their "relationship commitment" level, our bishounens in have been ranked accordingly:

HIGH: (Domesticated, very eager to settle down)

Yamazaki has bought an engagement ring when he and Chiharu had been regularly dating for 6 months. He knew even long before he bought the ring that he had found a fiery diamond in Chiharu and that he could never let her get away. He had been meaning to propose to her every chance he gets but errr…sex gets in the way. It was a stroke of good fortune when he found out that Chi Mihara, the emerging author is also his childhood crush, teenage sexual fantasy, future mother of his 10 children and destined soul mate.

He is aware that Chiharu still hasn't told her friends that they have been an item for almost a year now and he will not dare step inside the three girls' apartment because Moyo and Kura (he knows their pet names for each other) are both angry with him because of his initial tactics with their friend. Until then, all he can do is dream of the day when Chiharu Mihara will be Chiharu Yamazaki.

MEDIUM: (In an exclusive relationship but has no plans of marrying yet)

Touya Kinimoto--who's in a happy, monogamous relationship for some time now (but the details come later in the story, wink wink. He's NOT dating Yukito or another man for that matter, sorry slash fans!).

LOW: (Commitment? Going steady? Huh? Are you crazy?)

Eriol and Syaoran like women with a passion, especially those who 'stimulate' them mentally and physically in any order.

Now don't get it wrong. They are guys that any girl would want to bring home to meet the parents. But it's just that—they haven't found the right person yet. Relationship-wise, he and Eriol would need the help of a full-time historian to keep track of all the girls they dated since high school. In all truth, they are not to break hearts intentionally. They make it clear to the girls early on that they have nothing long-term to expect from them. But what's a man to do if the girls can't keep away from them?

TO BE CONTINUED….

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I would really appreciate your feedback so please drop a review if you have time. Thanks!


	3. Happy Reunion S&S

AU – Sakura and Syaoran met as small kids, lost touch, and grew up. Years later, he is a notorious player while she is a charming pediatric dentist with a very handsome boyfriend. What will happen when they finally bump into each other again?

Disclaimer: CCS and TRC belong to CLAMP.

General Notes: We start on the same day where we left off. For MeiLing fans, sorry but she will only be playing a small part here. The events in S&S and E&T are happening at the same time of the day but I've written S&S's first.

Chapter 3. Happy Reunion-S&S

After the heated argument with her friends Sakura drove to her favorite "cool down" place just beside Seijuu Soccer Field where there is a small park. She parked and gave way to her tears. Even though it hurt she had to admit that there were times when doubts about how her boyfriend felt about her. She wonders if he's even thinking of marrying her; when they first went steady she's always dreamed that someday she will marry him—although lately she's not so sure anymore. Maybe that's why she was so defensive and harsh with her friends. She started to feel bad about the entire encounter so she sent them both a text message, saying she's all right and will be back before dinner. She intends to apologize personally to them later.

After a few minutes, she looked at herself in the mirror and brushed her hair. She decided to take a walk a few laps around the outer rim of the soccer field to relax. She saw that there was a boy's soccer game scheduled today on the sign board: "**Practice Game: Seijuu vs. Tomoeda**". When she was younger, she would watch her onii-chan play soccer games here. She used to be a cheerleader too so she was always here whenever there was a game.

Today's game has just started. The Tomoeda boys were in green while the Tomoeda boys were in yellow. She continued to watch as she walked. The Tomoeda boys were quite good and had high energy level. She also noticed that they have a new coach, but all she could see was his back as he was watching his players closely. He is quite tall and well-built, with broad shoulders and toned arms that his green shirt emphasized. He had a brown cap on his head but she could see stray strands of brown hair peeking out. His butt is cuter than Yuki's too. Sakura shook her head and continued to walk.

"Tomoeda scores a goal!" The announcer says. The mostly-Seijuu audience moans. She felt sorry for the visitors since they had no one to cheer for them.

Their coach pumps his fist into the air. "Good going boys! Attaboy Chen!" He shouted to the brown-haired boy who just scored. The boy waved proudly back at him.

'He has such a deep voice'. Sakura noted. She has rounded a bend now and was seized with curiosity as to what the coach looked like but he ran to the opposing team's goal post. 'He has a good profile and is certainly more absorbed with the game compared to the Seijuu coach, who just sat on the sidelines.

One of the Tomoeda boys was able to gain control of the ball and was heading back to their team's side, their coach closely following their progress. "Yan! Careful!" His cap fell from his head. He leaned down to pick it up.

She was then able to see the coach's face at last. He had thick rich brown hair some of which fell to cover part of his face. He had deep-set, expressive eyes (which she suspects is the same shade as his hair), a strong jaw, chiseled nose. In short, he looked handsome and quite young, maybe just a few years older than her. His whole facial expression radiated confidence and action. Everything about him screamed "masculine". She found herself staring at him longer than she should, chided herself and turned away, continued to walk. Little did she know that he too had noticed her.

Her phone rang so she had to stop and take it. "Moyo? Look, Moyo, I'm really sorry about earlier. I feel so bad."

"We understand Kura. We can talk more at home later. Listen, I got a call from my boss—I need to go downtown immediately and meet with him and the composer of the theme songs for the anime."

Sakura frowned. "But it's a Sunday--how inconsiderate of them."

"He said he was urgent because a manga-ka group called Clamp will be there too—they want my inputs for the background story they'll write."

"Oh! This is good! I'm excited for you Moyo! Tell me about it later!"

"Wish me luck, Kura—I'm nervous." Moyo replied.

"I'm sure he'd be a nice guy—it's Hiirigizawa right?"

"I'm not nervous about **him; **I've heard that he's a womanizing weirdo who goes for matrons. I'm nervous about meeting Clamp." Moyo said.

The two friends continued to talk for a few more minutes. Sakura was smiling broadly now. Next she received a call from Haru. Sakura started to apologize but her friend cut her nicely. "Kura—I've done worse, stop apologizing. I called because I need to ask you something." Haru's voice sounded nervous. "Is it all right with you if I invite my boyfriend for dinner with us tomorrow night?

"Why of course dear! Moyo and I have always wanted to meet him." Kura replied eagerly.

Haru sighed with relief. "I hope you'll both like him."

"I'm sure we will, Haru!" Kura said encouragingly. "If you want, Moyo and I can cook for you lovebirds. Could you text me what food he likes?"

"Ummm…OK…I'll ask him…I'm going to his place right now to…um…I might stay the night." Haru said.

"Sure! Talk to you tomorrow then." Kura ended the call. Her old cheerfulness was back. She sat on a stone bench. Tomoeda has scored 3 additional goals! It's now Tomoeda 4- Seijuu-0. 'They're very good. Onii-chan will have a heart attack when he finds out about this.' Touya had been Seijuu's soccer star in his day and their team never lost.

XOXOXOXOXOX

Syaoran scratched his head. He hated distractions especially now that they're in their opponent's home base but he couldn't help it. The other coach had called for a short time out so he spent a few minutes patting the back of his team and giving them advice to sustain their momentum. But then, he couldn't help but glance at the very attractive girl talking with someone on her cell phone just some distance ahead. She was smiling prettily while she talked. He reminded himself that a girl that beautiful is most likely taken. He looked at her hands and saw no engagement or wedding ring. 'Hmmm.'

The game started again and he sent off his nephews (the players were all his nephews) somewhat distractedly. The pretty girl is wearing a simple white blouse with little holes at the bottom (eyelets) and pink capris. The fabric hugged her bottom and her legs very well. He strained a bit to get a better look at her chest but was startled from his pleasant observation when someone tapped him on the shoulder.

"Syaoran Li is that you? I can't believe it! What a lucky coincidence -- I just dropped by to get some sun." A screechy female voice asked him. He turned and saw MeiLing Rae. They attended the same high school and she was one of his most ardent fan girls. She gave him the creeps. "And still as gorgeous as ever I see!"

"Um. Hi Rae. How's it been?" He asked, not really caring what her answer is.

MeiLing started to say a verbal autobiography but Syaoran cut her in the most polite way he could. "Look Rae, I have to look after my team."

Her big disappointment is apparent on her face. "OK then, but please **call me Mei**, Syaoran. After the game we can catch up—by the way I'm still single and available." She winked suggestively sauntering off with a pronounced sashay in her hips for his benefit.

It sent unpleasant shivers up and down his spine. 'Desperate times call for desperate measures.'

His nephews had scored another goal while this was happening. It's now 4-0 in favor of Tomoeda. He ignored the dour faces of the Seijuu crowd watching from the stands. MeiLing waved to him from where she sat. 'Ugghh..'

The Tomoeda coach called for another time out, obviously panicking. His nephews ran towards him and he gave them a few pointers all the while noting that the pretty girl is now sitting on a bench in one side of the field, watching them with interest. He felt Meiling's eyes almost boring a hole on the nape of his neck. He whispered to his nephews during their huddle. "Guys, I need your help on this—this means an additional gallon of ice cream for your cooperation." His nephews nodded. Extra ice cream is always good news.

"Just agree with everything I say when a woman approaches us later, OK?"

"Yes, uncle!" They saluted smartly.

There was a 15-minute break before the second half of the game so MeiLing took advantage of it and approached Syaoran and his resting players. "Syaoran!" She screeched.

"Rae. I'd like you to meet my kids." Syaoran gestured towards Mianhua and Xian (both 7) his youngest twin nephews. He quickly slipped his hands in his jacket so she won't see that he doesn't have a wedding ring.

His nephews misunderstood—they thought their uncle meant all of them. In unison, they said, "Hi there, Dad's friend." (Syaoran's instructions were not that clear come to think of it.)

MeiLing mouth popped open. "Dad's? Oh..uh..you mean, they're ALL your kids?"

"Ah…" Syaoran started to say something but the kids beat him to it.

"Yes, we have different mothers!" The kids said, thinking of the extra gallon of ice cream.

Meiling's jaw dropped to the ground. She had always known that Syaoran was a player but she never thought that he would be that bad! The oldest kid looked about 8 or 9 years old—he had started earlier than she thought! She said goodbye abruptly and walked back to her car.

Syaoran smiled in spite of himself, giving two thumbs-up to his nephews as they went back in formation. His eyes scanned the field and saw that the pretty girl had walked closer to his team's area. She was talking again on her phone. 'To her boyfriend no doubt.' He thought, narrowing his eyes. He usually didn't go for girls who were taken but for some reason something about this girl reminded him of something and he felt the urge to get to know her better.

In the final few seconds of the game, Tomoeda was winning 15-2 when Chen of Tomoeda was roughly pushed by two players from Seijuu. Chen fell on his face to the grass hard. The referee whistled signaling the end of the game. The Tomoeda boys cheer loudly for themselves with some polite applause from the crowd. Syaoran barely noticed as he was hurrying over to Chen, who was still lying on the ground. The referee was kneeling beside him. "I think he broke a tooth or something—his mouth is bleeding, sir."

"Oon-cle, my front teeth." He's having a hard time speaking so Syaoran grabbed his hankie and gave it to the bleeding boy. His older sister will strangle him if anything in her son's anatomy is damaged. Syaoran saw that the front tooth (which was already permanent) was chipped at an odd angle and there were a few milk teeth dangling from the gums.

Sakura saw what happened and rushed over to the where the boy is together with the other Tomoeda players. She heard the coach asking the referee if there was a dentist nearby where he could take the boy.

The referee shook his head. "It's a Sunday, sir, all clinics are closed except the dentist at the hospital about 3 miles from here. I'm sorry."

Syaoran let out a deep breath, frustrated. "Come on then, let's go there team. Just close your mouth Chen and cover it with the hankie, we'll go to the hospital."

"I'm a dentist! I can help!" Sakura's voice broke the tense atmosphere. The eyes of the others all turned to her. "There's a clinic nearby with the equipment, I can take you there."

Syaoran nodded, relief washing all over him. She knelt on the grass and scanned it for the chipped portion of the tooth, just in case. She found it and stood up to see that Syaoran had the other boys carry their stuff to their van which was parked nearby.

"My car is on the other side of field and…" She started.

"Do you mind joining us in the van?" He asked.

She looked at him. Normally she would not even consider riding in stranger's vehicles but she found herself saying "No. Let's go." He looked like a decent person.

Chen sat on the second row behind Syaoran and the other boys piled in quickly. Sakura sat on the passenger seat in front. She gave him directions on where to turn and sure enough they reached Yukito's closed clinic in two minutes.

Luckily he had given her keys long ago and she hurriedly opened it. They all entered as she flipped on the lights. "Let's go." She motioned to Chen to come with her to the treatment room. She turned to Syaoran and the other boys. "It will be fine." They heard her switching on machines from outside. Syaoran instructed the other boys to change clothes in the van while they were waiting. He looked around the waiting room and saw the Dentist's name "**Tsukishiro Yukito, DMD, Dental Surgeon**." He didn't see any other name and wondered what the pretty girl's name is. She sure is a good Samaritan. He was wondering how he can return the favor when his nephews entered and started sneezing one after the other. He approached them and touched the forehead of the nearest one. "Don't tell me you're all coming down with something."

"It smells like it's full of lemons here uncle." Yan answered a bit too loudly. The other boys agreed.

Syaoran bit his lip. "Shhh… She might hear you and she's been nice and all. Behave."

In less than an hour, Chen walked outside the treatment room followed by Sakura.

"It's OK—it's fixed." She announced happily, the other boys cheered. She put an arm on the boy's shoulder. "Cheng, please sit there while I talk to…your…um…"

"Syaoran. Syaoran Li. I'm their…" He extended his hand to shake hers, she did the same. 'Soft and smooth', noted Syaoran as he held hers in a firm and friendly way.

Chen's twin brother, Chang remembered their uncle's instructions earlier and cut off his uncle: **"He's our Dad**! We're Fuutie's sons." He said pointing to him and Chen. He nudged the other boys and they all said. "Yes, he is. We're Huanglian's sons." Yan and Xian said. "I'm Xuehua's," said Chuyin. "And I'm Feimei's," said Mianhua.

Sakura's eyes widened, her mouth formed an "Oh." Why did she feel a tinge of disappointment just now? All the boys did share a close resemblance to Syaoran--same unruly brown hair and brown eyes, same facial expression, same confident demeanor. She never imagined that he's such a prolific dad. Then they both realized that Syaoran was still holding her hand. She withdrew hers shyly.

Syaoran heart was slowly sinking through all this and glared at his nephews (don't worry, they're immune to it) "No, I'm not. I'm their…"

The ring of her cell phone startled all of them. She saw in the caller ID that it was her boyfriend. "Excuse me but I have to take this call. It's the owner of the clinic." She said and proceeded to a corner of the room. Six pairs of young boys' eyes followed her curiously, which their uncle noticed. "It's impolite to stare." Their uncle reminded them quietly. The boys went back to the couch and talked quietly among themselves.

"Yuki..hello. Yes. By the way…sorry but I commandeered your clinic….there's an emergency…but its OK now…He's a nice father of 6 boys…one of his sons…"

Syaoran winced and felt something weird at the pit of his stomach as he heard her mention the caller's name. It was probably the owner of the clinic Yukito. He found himself frowning for no reason at all. He didn't notice that his nephews have surrounded him. Chang (8) tapped his hand. "Ne, Uncle, can we ask her out for a snack? She's really sexy."

Chen (8) nodded in agreement, "Yes, I think I'm in love." Yan (7) piped in, "Do you think she'll come with us?" Xian (7) winked at his uncle: "She left her car near the soccer field, ne, uncle?" Mianhua (7) said: "I'll ask her on a date." Chuyin (7) protested. "No you don't I will!"

"Shhh….!! I told you all to behave. No more ice cream for…" Syaoran said in a loud whisper. He was getting beaten at his own game by his boy-nephews.

"Er…Mr. Li?" Sakura suddenly felt shy. She only heard the "behave" part.

"Call me Syaoran. I'm sorry but I didn't get your name earlier."

"I'm Sakura. Sakura Kinimoto. Pediatric dentist." She held out her hand, he took it again (it's becoming a habit now) and shook it. To his chagrin, his nephews hurried over to shake hands with her too while introducing themselves. He was forced to stand aside to make way for them. They looked every bit like excited school boys fawning over their crush.

Sakura was smiling amusedly when she said: "Syaoran, I need to explain what I did to Chen's teeth." He nodded and followed her to a desk where they sat down. She showed him a diagram of teeth and explained the procedure but he sort of zoned out—he probably couldn't explain it to Fuutie later. He only listened to her voice and looked at her.

"Can I get your um…ah…number? My sister might want to ask more detailed questions." He paused. "And I'm their uncle by the way, not their father."

Sakura's lips curled into a smile but she bit her lip. The smile lingered in her eyes though. They looked at each other for a moment. She broke the gaze. "Oh you have to fill-out these forms too before I forget."

Syaoran nodded. He took the forms and did as she said. Sakura observed him discreetly. He was better looking up close. His lips were full and his hands were big—with long fingers, his feet are large. She recalled that Haru mentioned something about how significant the size of men's feet is in terms of women's pleasure…she just couldn't remember the premise behind it. She thought it was all so illogical at the time—how would men's feet contribute to pleasure anyway? Haru was a bit weird sometimes. She woke up from her trance when she noticed he was taking his wallet from his pocket. Sakura held up her hands to him. "Oh no…Yuki said to not accept anything…please…I told him that Chen was pushed. Yuki's a former soccer player for Seijuu too and he feels bad about what happened."

"That's very kind and charitable of him but I really must insist since you were the one who did it…" Syaoran will not let her win this one. He felt though that he might have come off as arrogant.

"But we used his clinic and supplies and all, what I did is ." Sakura replied, not willing to back down either. She almost always won over Yuki over their debates. This man was so different from Yuki in this respect.

His nephews had followed them. Chan spoke up. "Uncle, Miss Sakura…" His stomach growled loudly, followed by five other distinct growls from the other boys. "Sorry!" The boys said when they saw the embarrassed look on their uncle's face. Sakura smiled widely at their expressions. Come to think of it, she had very little breakfast earlier.

Syaoran turned to her. "OK, let's compromise Sakura. You can send us a bill and you'll join us for a…" He looked at his watch. "Late afternoon snack?"

"Er…I wouldn't want to impose…I…" She wanted to go but felt very shy. She's sure that she's blushing now.

"Please Dentist Sakura." The 6 boys flashed pleading lost-puppy-dog eyes to her. They all looked so much like their uncle that it was like they were tiny clones of him, and who could ever resist 6 small versions of Syaoran and 1 fully-grown version? No one. Nu-uh.

Sakura cleaned up and closed Yuki's clinic again. Syaoran was dying to ask her what her relationship to Yuki was but stopped himself. His nephews piled into the van chatting happily. Sakura took her place beside him in front, where he looked at her discreetly from the side mirror of the van. He felt like he was being given a preview of something. Is this what it felt like to be domesticated? To have a wife and kids?

"Ne, Syaoran, where will we go?" Sakura asked him softly.

"Pizza Palace!" The boys said in unison. "And you promised us two extra gallons of ice cream uncle!"

"Two? I said just one.." His brows furrowed. "You're mothers will kill me if you get sick."

Sakura chuckled at this exchange. Syaoran had no choice but to throw his hands in mock surrender.

XOXOXOXOXO

They drew the attention of all the customers and waiters as they entered the pizza restaurant. Some old ladies shook their heads and muttered "so young and so many children already… tsk tsk."

A waiter welcomed them and said rather loudly. "Please follow me to the **family room**, sir, ma'am, kids."

Sakura blushed and looked away from him. The boys got hold of both her hands and arm as they followed the waiter. Syaoran followed them all the while struggling to wipe off the silly grin on his face. Come to think of it, this situation felt a little familiar, like déjà vu? Sakura's name somehow rings a bell too. He just couldn't figure out exactly where he heard her name before.

By the time he entered the family room, he saw that his nephews had taken seats on either side of Sakura, leaving him **alone** on the opposite bench. The boys appeared to be on their very best and most polite behavior.

They ordered several pizzas, a large bucket of chicken, pitchers of drinks and ice cream. The boys seemed to be competing in offering the best food to Sakura from their own plates. It amused her a lot. Their uncle sat across her, observing her quietly as he ate. His nephews then started to interview her on her favorite things and hobbies which she answered cheerfully. Syaoran smiled to himself, his nephews inherited something from him after all—in about an hour—he found out what her favorite color, hobby, movies, cartoons, TV shows, food, ice cream flavor, cereal, songs, places, were and discovered that they had a lot in common.

Chen wiped his mouth. He had been quiet up until now. "Dentist Sakura, do you have a boyfriend?" Seven pairs of eyes looked at her. She felt like she was under an X-ray.

"Yyy-es." She said, her cheeks turned pink. She realized that thoughts of Yuki did not cross her mind for most of the time that she was with Syaoran and his nephews. (Except when she talked to him of course.) The boys sighed loudly, their uncle sighed inwardly. How disappointing.

Chang spoke up undeterred. "How long have you been together?"

"Chang, that's personal." Syaoran said though he was dying to find out himself.

"Four years." Sakura replied quietly, she also noticed that she did not seem to want to talk about Yuki at all right now.

"SAKURA! I've been looking all over for you!" They all turned and Sakura saw Naoko Yanagisawa, one of her college friends, walk over to her. "Oh, sorry for intruding." She said to Syaoran.

"It's all right." He said, although he was a bit annoyed with the interruption.

"Sakura—oh my…I didn't know you got married and have kids already!!" Naoko covered her mouth, suddenly embarrassed.

"They're my friends, I'm not married." Sakura replied.

"I'm so sorry! I just got back from Europe to get married here! You must come! You and Tomoyo. Here, Junoesque is doing all the arrangements for me. Please?" Naoko handed her a business card. "Please contact my planner." Her cell phone rang. "Sorry Sakura, but I have to go now." She looked at Syaoran, "I'm so sorry for taking her away." She then left.

Syaoran asked for the bill. "Enough questions boys, it's getting late, we've already taken a lot of her time."

"Awwww…." said the boys.

"That's OK, you can just drop me off at the school I left my car there," she said.

"Won't it be dangerous?" Syaoran asked. His phone rang. It's a conference call with his four sisters. "Excuse me. It's my sisters." He spoke with them and hung up shortly. He paid the bill and they left the restaurant. Syaoran found himself driving more slowly than usual towards the soccer field. His nephews had used up most of their energy and were leaning drowsily on their seats.

"I'm sorry I haven't even thanked you yet for what you did." Syaoran said.

She stared at her hands. "It was nothing."

"It's **not** nothing." He replied. "How could you say that."

"Thanks too for taking me with you to the restaurant."

"Yeah right and had those boys interview you," he smirked.

"You're a really nice guy…uncle…you know." She looked at him shyly.

"And you're a…great…" He wanted to hit himself for being such a stuttering idiot. He had been so glib with women UNTIL now. He felt like a stupid school boy.

"Uncle! We passed by the soccer field already--about two blocks ago."

XOXOXOXOXO

Sakura thanked him again when he escorted her to her car. She felt sad, like a load was placed on her chest when she walked him walk away, but she convinced herself that she feels the exact way when Yuki leaves. Or did she?

He went back to the van and drove after her. At an intersection, she rolled down her window and signaled that she was going to turn to the left. Syaoran waved yes and watched her car disappear into the distance. That's when he remembered. Kinimoto. His mother had a friend named Kinimoto. He will look into his old stuff when he gets home. He looked at the back where his nephews were dozing off in their chairs. He drove off towards Tomoeda, thinking only of how her scent still lingered in the van.

XOXOXOXOXOXO

**E&T:**

Moyo drove off downtown after speaking with Kura. She's relieved that they had reconciled. Kura never stayed angry for long anyway. She was also looking forward to meeting Haru's hot date that they've been hearing about. Sakura sent her a text message asking her if she wanted to cook dinner with her for the lovebirds when they come over and she said yes. Moyo only wondered why Haru was being so secretive about her boyfriend's identity but very open about the more private things that they were doing. She felt that Haru was hiding something from them. Of course, Kura wouldn't agree with her on this—she's never been the suspicious type that girl.

She was supposed to drive to King Penguin Tower for the meeting with Kerr Beros, her boss, the Clamp group and that Hiirigizawa guy. She's both very excited and very nervous about what's happening to her career right now—it had been so mediocre until now. Imagine having an anime TV show based on her creation! She would have to go to her mother's home in the country and inform her about it herself. It would definitely cheer her up!

She hummed happily to herself when she saw the towering building looming in the distance. It was her destination. Then from out of nowhere, another car cut on her and rolled over a puddle of water, spraying her clean, cream-colored car with dirty pavement water. She turned on her windshield wipers immediately and cursed under her breath. "**Shit! Stupid asshole**."

She saw that the driver of the midnight blue car ahead of her was talking on his cellphone—which may be the reason why he didn't see her. His plate number was

"**E REED IZ HEA**." For some reason, her blood boiled at the sight of his car that she tightly gripped her steering wheel. She stepped on the gas. She caught up with the driver of the car and honked loudly at him, cut him at the next turn then sped away.

She turned and thought she saw a rather confused expression on the driver's face. His mouth was partly open. She also noticed that he had dark hair and wore glasses. 'That felt really, really GOOD!' She increased the volume of her car's stereo and hummed to herself again.

"HONK!" A noise came from beside her. It was the asshole driver again! He seemed to be challenging her as he sped away, leaving her alone on the expressway. 'He must be laughing his warty ass off that …that…'

Tomoyo Taylor never backs away from a challenge. Memories of her car accident when she was little faded from her mind. Heck, she was suddenly in the mood for some drag racing right now. She flicked back her long hair and stepped on the gas. **HARD.**

(Uh—oh Road Rage Tomoyo here we go.)

TO BE CONTINUED….

---------------------

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	4. Happy Reunion E&T

AU – Sakura and Syaoran met as small kids, lost touch, and grew up. Years later, he is a notorious player while she is a charming pediatric dentist with a very handsome boyfriend. What will happen when they finally bump into each other again?

Disclaimer: CCS and TRC belong to CLAMP.

General Notes: **I'm very sorry for the late update!** Real life sometimes gets in the way. I really appreciate all the reviews, the alerts and those who tagged this story as their favorites. Almost 1,000 hits **before** I posted Chap 3! HCtB is the most popular of all my 3 stories and I have all of you to thank for it.

Recap: For the last chapter, Syaoran was too busy trying to impress Sakura, checking her out and competing for her attention with his six nephews to focus and try to remember her although he feels that she is familiar somehow. For this chapter, Eriol will have a lot of "help" in jogging his memory about Tomoyo. I've assigned a little "OOC" roles for Fay and Kuro-pai here, I couldn't resist. Tell me what you think. BTW, I've assigned more "in-character" roles for them in my other story "Technology is Magic!"

Disclaimer: All the characters belong to CLAMP. I only own the plot.

Chapter 4.

Tomoyo easily caught up with the A.D. (Asshole Driver). Being a Sunday, they were the only two people in the expressway (it links the capital city with the suburbs). She saw him smirking expectantly at her when their vehicles were side-by-side. It's a good thing her car's windows were slightly tinted so he wouldn't recognize her. The windows in his car are very clear so she was able to see him clearly. The guy was quite a looker to be honest: he looked young and had a masculine and genteel face. He had dark hair and glasses that covered his eyes—she's sure they were either blue or gray. He looked confident. If she had seen him anywhere else she would instantly think that he is a well-mannered gentleman based on how he looks. She then felt a sharp pain in her head—like a migraine was starting.

She always feel this whenever she tried to remember her childhood.

Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she overtook him and he easily followed. It seems that they were both evenly-matched with their skill, competitiveness and their insane disregard for a possible early death. Moyo tried a different tactic. She sped ahead (a bit over the speed limit) and drove ahead of him. Eriol was startled but he did the same. He pressed his car horn, pointed to his speedometer mouthing 'crazy?' and then pointed her.

Moyo's response was to increase her speed. He followed her tactic, forcing her to switch lanes. They continued to do this for a few minutes, and she could see that he was enjoying it much as she was. To an observer, it looked as if the two cars were doing an extremely crazy sort of a "highway waltz" or "death wish." They couldn't shake off each other through all the turns and curves of the road, trying to outdo each other but never quite succeeding.

Moyo couldn't help but have fun—oddly enough it felt like a **"date"** to her. When she glanced at him, he looked like he felt the same. She shivered in a pleasant way when she saw his smile. On the other hand, Eriol felt a mixture of awe and disbelief that a woman (he could see that the occupant is a woman but he couldn't see her face clearly, she has long hair) could be as much of a crazy driver as he was. He intends to ask for her number so he can ask her out for a drink after this.

After a few more minutes they both noted (with a bit of regret?) that they were nearing their destination and how they do in the next five minutes will determine the outcome of the "race." Tomoyo drove closer to him—she saw him smirking—as if he is daring her to continue and this irked her so she turned her steering wheel with pinpoint accuracy that made it look like she will bump right into him. They were **both way above the legal speed limit** so Eriol didn't want them both to get hurt – he turned to avoid her car. This forced him off the road and into a grassy "shoulder" of the road. She laughed loudly pressed her car horn loudly three times as if telling him "I've won."

He muttered very colorful language under his breath. 'Who knew that she would play dirty, she's getting more and more interesting every minute.' He mentally noted her license plate: "**I'M AMIYA**"; she fired an avid curiosity in him even if he has not even seen or talked to her yet. She must have an explosive personality besides an immense love for randomly racing strange men on a Sunday.

He sped up and saw her car in the distance, he pressed his car's horn to catch her attention but she ignored him and continued in her current illegal speed. It was then that a Highway Patrol car arrived. He was forced to stop, muttering very colorful language again as he does so. And he so wanted to ask out "**Ms I'M AMIYA**" for a date.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't the biggest contributor to the revenues of the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. It's your 10th violation this month and it's only what—the 10th of the month today." Officer Spinel Sun greeted him in his usual slow, monotone voice.

"Couldn't **catch **that other car so you had to settle for **catching** me, eh?" Eriol had pure venom in his eyes. The last time he was this pissed was when his parents grounded him indefinitely for breaking their weirdo neighbor's windows which he did because of a girl whose initials were T.D. and now he was going to be scalped again because of a girl **again.** Some things never change.

"What can I do? **Catching** you is the highlight of my existence." Officer Sun SLOWLY scribbled something on his pad and SLOWLY tore off a speeding violation ticket. "Know what—I even had a weird dream last night."

"Knowing you, that isn't so unusual." Eriol gritted his teeth.

Sun ignored his sarcasm. "I dreamed that you were **catching me** instead of me **catching you**. Imagine that!"

"I **feel** so special." Eriol's nostrils flared. "What? Shit! Why am I going to pay an extra 500 bucks for this?"

"As you should know by now after YEARS of experience, the 10th violation is 'the charm.'"

"What's the hell is this now!?" Officer Spinel starts to write something SLOWLY on his pad **again** and hands it to Eriol.

"If you can read, it says: disrespect for an Officer of the Law. No swearing…Uh-uh-uh." Spinel sounded bored.

Eriol bit back the sharp retort at the tip of his tongue and took a deep breath. He was never going to catch up with the girl now.

XOXOXOXOXO

Tomoyo felt a little disappointed when the A.D. was not able to catch up with her. Maybe she won't see him again. She sighed. It turns out that there is a large street demonstration along Tomoeda City's main thoroughfare so she had to take another turn which meant she could not park in King Penguin Tower's basement. She decided to park near the Public Library which was just a short distance away from her destination. She glanced at her watch and saw that she is way too early since she drove like a maniac earlier. A small smile lit her face. 'It would have been great if I get the chance to meet A.D.' Tomoyo said to herself. She then noticed that the crowd converged near the corner of the Library and there was a makeshift stage.

A tall, muscular man with dark hair and a frowning face was speaking a bit roughly on a megaphone while he was flanked with several well-built, handsome men who looked like movie stars. Moyo felt the familiar sharp pain in her head again.

There were large red and black banners everywhere saying "**Freedom of Artistic Expression Now!**" There are even banners that said: 'Kuro-pipi marry me!' 'Kuro-sama, let's elope!' 'Kuro-pin let's make babies!' 'Kuro-ru take me – I'm all yours!' 'Mr Black – make me your joy toy' 'SPANK ME - Kuro-bun!' A lot of women and gay men from different age groups were drooling and swooning openly over the handsome men on the stage — they were shouting the men's names and chanting "Viva Red Banana! Viva Red Banana! Viva Red Banana!"

She has heard of the notorious strip club before from Haru of course and it was all over the news yesterday. Red Banana wants to open other chains all over the country, like a fast food franchise. They were led by their most popular "Alternative Artist" – Kurogane (his stage name is 'The Ninja') then Subaru and Kamui (the 'Vampire Twins'), Seichiro (the 'Hunter'), Domeki (the 'Personal Servant'), Kyle (the 'Body Thief'). The charismatic and very popular pastor Fay D. Fluorite who leads the **Tomoeda Morality Alliance**, is vigorously opposing this "flagrant immorality".

As she walked past them, she felt an odd twinge in her head especially when she caught sight of Kurogane, who was now boldly daring the Pure-as-Snow Fay D. Fluorite to visit and watch their shows to see that they are merely being "alternative artists." The women and gay men around her were still drooling at him. Then out of the corner of her eye, she thinks she saw someone who looks like Yukito. She turned to find him but he was gone. She knows that Chiharu saw Yuki in Red Banana too. She stayed for a few more minutes to search for him with no success. Thinking she was one of them they gave her a red and black wristband with a crescent moon design, which she took distractedly.

She easily reached the 30th floor of the Penguin Tower and saw that Kerr Beros, her tall and muscular and openly gay boss was sipping coffee. There was an assortment of cake and pastries on the table in front of him. He's wearing a canary yellow shirt, white trousers and canary yellow shoes and his blond hair was shaped like an ocean wave with blue streaks. He was absently typing something on this laptop (with a large winged lion as the wallpaper) while watching the news on the TV inside their meeting room. "Morning Moyo!" His yellow-brown eyes glanced at Moyo's wristband. "Oh good! Another supporter for Red Banana!" Everyone in the office knew that Kerr is a regular customer there.

"Hi Kerr. Morning." Moyo set down her bag and got a cup of coffee from the pantry. The Clamp group had arrived by the time she returned and Kerr was greeting them with his usual loud-voiced, Osaka-accented enthusiasm.

Moyo had heard a lot about them and was very flattered when they agreed to write the background story for the toy she created. Kerr introduced her to the four women who were led by Ageha Ohkawa, their head writer, Mokona, the main artist/character designer, Tsubaki Nekoi, Mokona's assistant and Satsuki Igarashi another artist and their tankobon designer. They were all carrying laptops and large, thick notebooks with them. Kerr informed them that Mr. Hiirigizawa sent a text message that he will be late. While they were waiting, the blond shared a very detailed and highly-lemony story of why he chose the fierce winged lion as the wallpaper in his laptop while gulping down vast large chunks of cake. Moyo saw on TV that there was another group of street demonstrations on the other side of the city. The supporters were holding ice blue and white banners.

"Kerr, is it OK if I videotape this session so I can show it to my mother this weekend?" Moyo asked. Clamp turned to her with interest.

"Sure dear," Kerr said, he had always had a soft spot for Moyo. He started to give out give-aways to the guests — a golden plush lion with wings and a tuft of brown hair at the end of its tail. "Ladies, this is Moyo's very first creation. She named it after me." He beamed at Moyo. "Too bad the toy buyers in the malls thought it looked weird because of the hair in the tail." The mangaka artists were all ears whenever Kerr spoke.

Moyo took advantage and started to film them. Her mother would surely treasure this.

XOXOXOXOXO

Eriol was very near losing his usual placid demeanor by now. He had been forced to drive from the farthest end of the city costing him several precious minutes. Then he had to stop his car when the "**Morality Alliance**" passed by him. They were all holding ice blue and white banners and his car window had blue and white confetti all over it so he had to wipe them off. He saw his former neighbor Fay D. Fluorite, leading the crowd. Yesterday on TV, Eriol watched him deliver an impassioned, stirring speech about morality. Right now, his followers were loudly chanting: 'Morality Now!' They were carrying banners that said: 'Let's Preserve our Youth's Innocence' 'No to Hedonism!' 'Stop Moral Corruption.'

Eriol had to smile when he recalled the time when Fay was a grouchy and lanky kid who "married" him and a girl whose initials were "T.D." He still kept the embroidered hanky that the girl gave him, he called it his "lucky hankie" and brought it with him every time he met clients for the first time, like right now. He strained to remember her first name, Tamara?…Tomita?…Tomasa?…Tomeka?...Tabitha? All he remembers is that it sounded so cute and made him feel warm all over. 'Wonder where she is now.' He thought absently. Then he remembered—Tomoyo!

The street demonstrators hand him an ice blue and white wristband as they passed by his car window. He took it so they'd leave him alone. In a few more agonizing minutes he was at last able to move. But as he neared the King Penguin Tower, he saw another large crowd with red and black banners this time. He had to wait for a few minutes before he was allowed to enter the building's basement parking lot so he had no choice but to watch the crowd in front of him. He saw yet another childhood friend and former rival! It's Kurogane. They had both nearly gotten into scuffles over "Tomoyo D." when they were in kindergarten until the girl moved away. He felt very sad for a long time after that. Was it Daidochi…Domyouji…? Daidouji!

XOXOXOXOXO

Moyo almost dropped her video camera when the bespectacled, dark-haired "Mr. Hiirigizawa" walked inside the meeting room. He was slightly breathless but still impeccably groomed. She clutched her temple — there is that sharp pain in her head again, only this time it's more intense.

So Mr. Hiirigizawa, the weird musician who goes for matrons turns out to be none other than her A.D.! 'Wait, scratch that, remove the "**her.**" He would never be hers if she could help it. Mr. Hiirigizawa was standing with his back towards her so he didn't see her when he entered. He started apologizing profusely to the ladies, bowing to them and kissing each of their hands in a very cool, suave sort of way as they were introduced. The four writers and Kerr were obviously charmed with him.

Moyo went back to her chair and sat down quietly and Kerr suddenly remembered her presence. "Mr. Hiirigizawa…"

"Call me Eriol, please." Eriol said with a smile. He gulped down a whole glass of water and was now filling another glass.

"Oh my, Moyo are you OK?" Kerr saw that his favorite toy designer's face had gone deathly pale. He stood up. Eriol turned to look at the person behind him and he did a double take. She looks a bit familiar. Is she who he thinks she is?

"I'm all right." Moyo said. "I'll just pop a migraine pill before we start, is that OK?"

Kerr sighed in relief. "By all means, but first, Eriol, I'd like to introduce you to the charming young lady who created the lovable character that we are going to discuss today," Kerr fluttered his eyelashes at him as he did so, "Miss Moyo Taylor."

Eriol's hand is now tightly clutching his glass, his mouth was partially open. "Tomoyo Daidouji?" He reached out for her hand to kiss it.

Moyo narrowed her eyes at him. She has not heard her biological father's last name for a very long time and she intends to keep it that way. Very formally, she took his hand and shook it before he could place it near his mouth. "I'm Moyo **Taylor,** Mr. Hiirigizawa." The way he looked at her was positively unnerving — like he finally found something that he had lost. She hoped fervently that he did not recognize her as the one who raced with him earlier. If he did, she intends to deny it most vehemently!

Kerr playfully slapped Eriol in the arm. "Oh Mr. Musician's not listening to me."

"Excuse me please, everyone, I'll just get something for my migraine." Moyo felt prolonged and intensified pain now, she bowed to all of them as she exited the room, partly to get medicine and partly to escape the piercing blue eyes of Mr. Hiirigizawa, a.k.a. "A.D."

Moyo returned after two minutes, still clutching her temple. Clamp and Kerr were chuckling as A.D. recounted what happened to him earlier – how he raced with another crazy driver in the expressway. "It all ended when I was flagged down by the highway patrol so I never got to see who she is. Had to pay a steep fine but she got away scott free!" His audience looked amused at this but shook their head in sympathy all the same. "But on the good side, I got inspiration for the title of the story's beginning song---since it's about a card mistress, right?"

"The character captures **magic** cards. At least that's what I first thought of." Moyo said crisply as she sat down. She knows that he said it so she could join the conversation, which was rather nice of him, but the fact remained that she disliked him a lot although she's not sure why.

"Tell me, **Tomoyo**, how does the title "Catch You, Catch Me" sound to you?" Eriol continued, apparently unaffected by her formality.

Moyo re-directed the question to Clamp. Ageha and Mokona said that they both liked it.

"Very well, this is certainly a very good start for this project." Kerr assumed his "formal-this-is-business" voice. "Moyo and I will do all we can to support you all on this — our company's target market is the 6 to 12 year old school girls, we are looking into merchandising and possible clothing line expansion so this anime show will be a big boost. So shall we start with getting acquainted with each other — after all we would be working on this as a team hopefully, for a very long time. Just say a little something about yourself, like your nickname, your hobbies, your deepest darkest secret or your favorite fantasy…something like that. And since you're the only thorn among the roses Eriol why don't you start?"

Eriol cleared his throat, amused. "I'm known as Eriol Hiirigizawa in professional circles, but my real name is Eriol Reed. I'm a musician with eclectic taste, I like sampling the free food that my cousin cooks, favorite color is blue, hobbies—hmmm…to impress a girl I really really liked when I was young, I broke our neighbor's glass windows with a basket-full of baseballs. Needless to say, I got grounded." His audience, except Moyo, all chuckled appreciatively. He continued, "My deepest, darkest secret is that I got hitched when I was 6 and had my first kiss at 6." Here he looked at Moyo very intensely, a glint of mischief and expectation in his eyes. She blankly looked back at him but soon broke eye contact, pretending to focus her video camera. She is thankful that it won't be her turn for at least a few minutes so she has time to think of what to say.

Mokona asked Eriol: "Is your mother Yuuko Reed, the CEO of InterDimension Travel?"

"The very same yes."

"You look a bit similar to that business executive who's always in the papers, the one they call the Wizard of the Financial Industry." Ageha said, rubbing her chin.

"Clow Reed is my Dad. There are three kids in the family, my sister Nakuru, my brother Hiro and me."

Kerr's interest was piqued. "Nakuru as in, Nakuru Akizuki the newest host of "Wake Up Call-Tomoeda"?

Eriol chuckled. "Yes, that's her professional name. She got her powerful lungs from my grandmother Ruby Akizuki who was an opera singer."

While all this is happening Clamp was typing feverishly on their laptops. Mokona was sketching on her notebook. The other members of Clamp followed suit by giving interesting anecdotes about themselves. Kerr Beros followed. He shared how he was called "Kero-chan" when he was a boy/girl, how much he liked sweets, video games and yellow things and using books as pillows and when he found out that he is gay.

Moyo is the last one so all eyes turned to her expectantly, she created the character after all. "I'm Tomoyo Taylor, but I prefer to be called Moyo. I like cooking, designing and sewing clothes, reading, videotaping my friends. I like violet stuff, I like magnolias and sakuras. I based this character on my cousin and one of my best friends Sakura-chan. We were looking at our childhood pictures together and I thought the costumes she wore in the pictures were pretty cute so that's where it all started."

"How about your deepest, darkest secret?" Eriol asked, his eyes twinkling. But deep inside he was wondering why she changed her last name. Is she married? But she wore no engagement or wedding rings.

"They'll remain deep, dark and secret." Moyo countered. The way his eyes seemed to bore right through the video camera she was holding, as if he is looking directly at her gave her the creeps. Everything about him is and she didn't like it one bit.

"If you don't mind us asking, Moyo, could you tell us more about your family?" Mokono asked, she was sketching on her notebook as she said this and looking closely at Moyo.

Her voice wavered. She had never been comfortable talking about herself. "My parents divorced when I was young, I'm an only child. My mother remarried and we both took my stepdad's name." It was all that she could share at the moment and Eriol felt his heart beat faster. 'So it really is her, what a coincidence to see her after all these years!'

Ageha leaned forward with keen enthusiasm as she addressed all of them. "As a group, we get inspiration for our characters and plots from real life so we really appreciate all that you've shared with us. We will still be asking more information from you in the coming days and we hope that you wouldn't mind."

Mokona spoke. "I liked the sketches you did Moyo but could you bring pictures of your cousin as well as yours when you can?"

Moyo nodded.

"That goes for you too, Eriol." Mokona smiled at him.

Eriol playfully raised his eyebrows. "Does this mean you're considering me to be your model for the bishounen lead?"

Clamp laughed. Ageha shook her head. "I'm afraid not although I have an idea on where a character based on you would fit better."

They all asked Moyo to share more inputs about the character: "Sakura is quite naïve, no scratch that, **very **naïve, clueless, innocent, and athletic. Childlike and childish—she still has this ancient brown teddy bear in her room somewhere. She's very cheerful, casual, and friendly. Very easy to please, she doesn't stay angry too long but she could be quite stubborn and protective about the people she loves. She likes pink and white colors and loves to eat shrimps and noodles."

Clamp is listening very attentively and jotting down notes. "Is she an only child?"

"She has an older brother, Touya. He's now a network producer. He's over-protective of her and he used to work so many different odd jobs when he was in high school. Her Dad's an archaeologist and college professor, my uncle Fujitaka. He's a very nice man, and loves to cook. Aunt Nadeshiko was a model when she was in high school, she married when she was just 16—he was a student teacher back then. She died when Sakura was about seven, so soon after that they moved to Seijuu."

"How about you Eriol, how can we help you develop songs for the TV show?" Mokona asked.

"I get inspiration from everyday things as well. It would also help if we could talk to the inspiration for the character too—I find that it helps me give depth to the tunes and the lyrics I write." He said, looking again at Tomoyo. "Plus, I will be adapting my work to the story and the characters."

She addressed her answer to the group: "I'll try to request my cousin to join us for one of our meetings, she's also very excited about all this."

"That's good news. I'll just make a few changes on the opening tune I prepared and have you all listen to it after lunch today." Eriol informed them.

Ageha spoke again. "Please feel free to interrupt if you have any questions. Here is our initial outline for the story," she pressed a key on her laptop and they all saw a bulleted outline on the projector screen.

"We thought of using the original family name of the main character since its fairly common—no problems with privacy. This will be a magic girl genre – the cards will be magical as Moyo has conceptualized. We believe "CardCaptor Sakura" will be a more catchy title than "CardMistress Sakura."

Moyo and Kerr nodded.

Mokona continued. "Sakura will have magic guardians and a mysterious and rude bishounen as a partner—who will eventually fall in love with her. But we have not found inspiration for him yet. We will be using flowers, colors and cute items heavily for most of the story."

The other two Clamp illustrators showed them briefly their initial sketches and character design, which were all cute but impressive. "We'll be showing more tomorrow."

"We're thinking of having her capture a deck of about 16 cards first but it all depends on audience reception—we can make it 52 or more later."

"We will be meeting on a regular basis for how long?" Kerr asked.

"Maybe 2-3 weeks straight to gather information then we will finalize the initial story boards and then we will work with the animators. After that, we'd still need to meet regularly but it depends on how the show is received by the audience."

"Good, I'll reserve this meeting room for our exclusive use then, or is there anything else that you guys would need?" Kerr inquired. They each gave him a list. "So our meetings will take place from Monday to Saturday. I may not be here every day but Moyo will."

Moyo nodded and flashed an excited smile at Kerr. Eriol felt something tug in his chest. It was the first time she smiled all day. She either does not remember him anymore (which gave him a pang) or she's just grown into a very good actress since she showed no signs that she even remembers him. But the years have certainly been good to her. She's very attractive, no, beautiful and extremely sexy—in a subtle but mind-blowing sort of way. She grew even more beautiful than he had imagined her to be when he was a kid. She is of medium height, a little taller than her mother, translucent and smooth skin that he wants to touch. Her face is perfectly shaped, her purple-tinged eyes rimmed with long lashes. She has definitely piqued his interest in more ways than one. Whatever her reasons are—if she either forgot about him or is just pretending, he will "force" her to remember.

They all had lunch together at the nearest branch of the immensely popular music bar/restaurant chain that Eriol, Syaoran and Yamazaki co-owned, which they called "_**Tsubasa Reservoir**_" (but he didn't tell them this). So the ladies (including Kerr) were very delighted when they were given the best table even if they had no reservations on a jam-packed Sunday. Eriol discreetly signaled the staff to pretend that they don't know him. He was delighted when he overheard Tomoyo tell the others that she liked going here.

"I wonder where they got the name though." Moyo asked no one in particular.

Kerr flicked his hand excitedly. "I heard they named it after a defunct druggie rock band or something…"

Eriol smiled and almost choked on his drink. "I heard the owners named it after the incident when their five older sisters tried to bully them into doing something. So they settled it with a no-holds-barred pillow-fight. The result was that they scattered feathers all over their apartment." He shared nonchalantly.

"So who won?" The Clamp group was curious.

"The older sisters of course, the owners had to do usher-duty for a wedding that their sisters planned." Eriol replied with a sparkle in his eye.

"And where did you hear that?" Moyo asked him. It was the first time that she directly asked him a question.

"From a very reliable source." Eriol smiled enigmatically and sipped his mango shake.

After lunch, they all walked back to King Penguin Tower and took the shortest route where they had to pass by a row of pet shops along the way. Moyo could not help but be impressed by the dashing figure that Eriol made even in his collared, blue and white pin-striped long sleeved shirt and impeccably pressed trousers. He had a toned body that is not bulky, just the type that she likes and his deep voice was mesmerizing—but she would rather die than tell him that of course.

Just then they passed a weird looking pet shop with dark windows. There was a cage that contained a couple of small, dark brown bats hanging upside down. Tomoyo was startled and let out a muffled shriek when the bats started to move their wings. She turned away quickly as if she was ready to puke. Eriol caught her elbow to steady her. "Are you all right?"

"Um...yes...thanks." She could not look at him, embarrassed that she showed that she's afraid even of caged animals. Kerr and the Clamp group were now busy looking at a cage full of extremely cute snow bunnies.

Eriol leaned in closer to her, but not too close. "So you're still afraid of bats I see. I find them a bit disgusting too."

Moyo's eyes widened in surprise for a fraction of a second but returned to their usual guarded, unreadable expression. "I…I agree." She felt another migraine attack coming on.

Back in the meeting room, they listened to the tunes that Eriol prepared initially which Kerr and Clamp praised him openly. Moyo personally thought that they were quite good; he was quite gifted in fact.

They all prepared to leave soon afterwards. Eriol held the elevator door open for them before he stepped in. He pressed "B" since all of them have parked there. For some reason, he found himself curious to know what car Moyo drives. **Maybe, just maybe**…

Moyo then remembered where she left her car. She pressed the "G" button for the Ground Floor. "I just remembered that I have to run an errand." She said to no one in particular.

She found herself breathing a sigh of relief after she exchanged goodbyes with the others. Eriol just nodded politely, he seemed to be disappointed about something—but then how would she know. She has no intention of letting him know that it was her he raced with this morning, not that she's afraid or anything. It's a lucky coincidence that she had to park elsewhere so he wouldn't see her car's license plate. She now knows who can help her out—**they** would hardly need convincing. It was perfect. She got in her car and drove towards the building of the Tomoeda Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

XOXOXOXOXOXO

Eriol had started to walk towards his car but decided to turn back. He was really curious to know what car Tomoyo drives—after all she and the lady driver both have long hair and he suspects they both came from Seijuu.

He was about to board the elevator when his cell phone rang. "Hello?"

It was his mom, Yuuko: "Eriol—you have to hurry home! Your father's…going to have…a heart attack! Hiro's on his way! Oh! No, Clow! Stop! Someone might get killed!" There were panicked female screams and a loud crash. The line had gone dead. Alarmed, Eriol ran back to his car and sped off to his parents' house. On the way there he tried to call all their numbers but was unsuccessful.

XOXOXOXOXO

Kura checked her watch as she drove home. It was almost 6 pm. She felt so full after Pizza Palace that she decided to just drink milk before she goes to sleep. She smiled again when she thought of Syaoran. Wait, Syaoran **and** his nephews, she corrected herself.

Moyo sent her a text message saying that she needed to borrow Sakura's

childhood pictures to show to Clamp. She smiled, so things had gone well for her cousin today too, just like her. She drove towards her father's familiar yellow house on another part of Seijuu.'The lights are off, he's probably off somewhere.'She parked, opened the door using her key and flicked on the lights. She went to her old room and lay for some minutes on her still-sweet-smelling bed.

She then dug out her old photo albums from the cabinet and decided to look at her pictures starting from when she was a baby. She chuckled at some of her most humiliating shots although her parents and Moyo and Haru would say they were "kawaii." One particularly thick volume contained many pictures of her 4-year old self—before her mom got bedridden. Those were happy times for their family.

She laughed when she saw their family vacation in Beiba where there was a picture of her mom with her model friend (her dad told her about it years after it happened). She had four daughters and a son. She looked closely at the frowning boy in the picture. He looked very much like Syaoran's nephews. She had forgotten his name but she remembers that he gave her a brown bear that she named "**Shoe.**" She still kept Shoe beside her bed in her current apartment.

She used to ask Touya to mail letters for her to that boy but her brother told her (which her Dad mentioned later as well) that their family had moved overseas to seek treatment for the Father's illness. She gasped. 'Could it be that this boy and Syaoran are…?" She picked up her cell phone to dial her father but there was an urgent knock on the front door.

"Sakura? Sakura? It's Yuki," came a familiar but muffled voice from outside.

Kura opened the door. Standing before her is her very miserable looking boyfriend. "I drove to your apartment but you weren't there so I figured that you're here…" His voice was raspy and he seemed on the verge of tears. He seemed to be rooted to the spot where he stood.

Kura pulled him inside, rubbing his arm to comfort him. "What's wrong?" She made him sit on the couch and was about to go to the kitchen to prepare tea for him when he took her hand and pulled her closer to him.

"Something happened… I was downtown when I received a call from the hospital… my grandmother… my grandmother…"

Kura's mind raced. Yuki had been raised since infancy by his grandparents. His grandfather died two years ago so he only has his grandmother now. "What happened?"

"The doctors called me to say that she might have only a few weeks to live…" There were tears rolling down his face. "I owe them everything Sakura. Everything. Who knows where I'd be now if they did not take me in."

She hugged him and he hugged her back, but the way that he clung tightly to her startled her. Yuki had never been this emotional before, she patted his back as he let his tears flow. "I'll make some tea for you, Yuki."

"No!" He said and tightened his hold on her. "I need you Sakura. I can't live without you." He cupped her face in his hands. "I've been a fool, I've been confused—I should have done this long, long ago. But now—I know what I want. It has been right before my eyes for so long and I've neglected you." He then leaned forward and hungrily kissed her lips. She was too stunned to even close her eyes.

Kura pulled away gasping for breath. She stood up, rubbing her now cold arms filled with goose bumps. "Yuki…I…"

Yuki knelt on one knee in front of her and fished out a velvet box from his shirt pocket. He took out a large diamond ring and held it out to her. He kissed her hand. "I've been meaning to give you this for so long now…Sakura…I cannot live without you. I need you… I'll die without you."

"Yuki…" Kura felt her throat go dry.

"Sakura, will you…will you…I beg you…will you marry me?"

"Hoe…"

XOXOXOXOXOXO

Having safely deposited his young nephews to their parents' houses, Syaoran drove back to the apartment he shared with his cousins and Yamazaki. He called his favorite flower shop on the way.

"Hey Sidney. Hi. I'd like to order flowers for someone…"

"Of course, Mr. Li. Will we be sending her your usual order?"

"No, **not **the usual. She's really, really special…I want you to send her your best selection of peonies, roses and cherry blossoms—in pink and white."

"One dozen like always?"

"How many do you have on stock?"

"About 10 dozen for each kind sir."

"Send it all to her clinic in Seijuu first thing tomorrow. Her name is Sakura Kinimoto, she's a children's dentist but I don't have her exact address."

"It should be easy to find her, Seijuu's not a very big place and besides, I've heard about her—they call her 'Dentist Cherry Blossom', right?"

"Yes, right." Syaoran said. He then dictated to her what to write in the note with the flowers. "Just send me the bill." He ended the call but very soon got another call from his mother:

"_Syaoran I got your message. Yes, I had a friend named Nadeshiko Kinimoto she visited us with her family when you were about six or seven in Beiba. Her husband's name is Fujitaka and their children's names are Touya and Sakura. I've heard that they left Tomoeda and moved somewhere else but we've lost contact…"_

Syaoran couldn't believe his ears. "I've found you at last, _my wife_."

TO BE CONTINUED….

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Sorry for the cliffhangers.

I would really appreciate your feedback so please drop a review if you have time. Thanks!


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